


I found love (where it was supposed to be)

by thistableforone



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Break Up, Comfort, Confessions, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Hugs, Love Confessions, physical comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 06:48:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17637833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thistableforone/pseuds/thistableforone
Summary: This relationship had never really been about the two of them. Another element was a constant presence in it. Not acknowledged, not until now, but there. It was in the far back of her mind, trying to evoke thoughts that she had promptly dismissed, guiding her hands when she pushed herself out of James’s reach.Lena breaks up with James and realizes something about the relationship she just ended.





	I found love (where it was supposed to be)

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't like Lena and James' fight at all. My mind went from there.  
> As usual, English is not my first language, please excuse my mistakes.

“We need to talk.”

Lena's barely inside James’ office when she speaks, shutting the door behind her without even waiting for a response.

She's spent hours trying to understand what was wrong between them, trying to figure out why James’ words hurt so badly and why he didn't appreciate what she did.

After their fight, she had taken a moment to compose herself, had walked back inside Kara's apartment only long enough to take her things and leave - celebrations were already over anyway.

She didn't know how James had spent the rest of the day, he didn't even bother to tell her if he was safe, and she had wrecked her mind over calling him or not. She had asked over text, at the end, and as soon as he had replied he was fine she had fallen asleep.

But in the morning the exhaustion had worn off and left its place to anger. Her type of anger, the cold one, that makes her feel absolutely nothing while resolutely dismantling everyone. When that kind of sentiment arises, she knows the other person doesn't have a chance against her. That, whatever they say, for her they're already over.

So when she says they need to talk, what she means is she has taken a decision and she's merely informing him. Somewhere in the back of her mind she tells herself he's right: she really is incapable of love, because it doesn't work like this. But it's how _she_ works… maybe she's really better off alone.

“Lena,” James sighs as he raises his head. He leans back in his chair and that sole movement is enough to disgust her. Suddenly the thought of him near her revolts her, and the clear expectancy of an apology on his face worsens the feeling. A smirk grows on her lips automatically despite it: he couldn’t be more wrong.

“You went,” she states. “And you made it out alive, this time.”

It’s not a question because his smugness is saturating the air of the whole office, so clear and outright exhibited in his expression. Lena tilts her head, watching him, taking notes of his trepidation to hear her excuse herself.

“You know, James,” she says, “you have a very familiar aura around you right now. One that I’ve experienced first hand with another very important person in my life before. He made me feel special, suddenly normal and lovable, he took care of me when no-one else would. He was the gentlest person I had met til then, the last I was wary of.”

The more she says, the more the resemblance comes to surface in front of her eyes. How could she miss it again?

“That’s why I didn’t see him change. He suddenly became an attention-seeking mass murdered who thought it was his job to save the Earth. He condemned me to pay for his mistakes for the rest of my days, he made the little girl I was cry to sleep every night wondering if it was her fault, if she didn’t do enough.”

She’s not sure whether James is not understanding or waiting for her to finish, but the lack of response on his part is annoying her, turning her voice sharper.

“It wasn’t. Her fault, I mean. I know that now. Lex chose his path by himself. I don’t understand why he chose it, nor how he could, but I couldn’t have done anything to stop him. You remind me of him, James.”

Unsurprisingly, that’s what finally draws a reaction out of him. He frowns, and gets up, pointing a finger at her and reminding her he’s Superman’s best friend. _Don’t you dare repeat that, Lena_. She smirks at the threat, something pulls at her chest to do exactly the opposite, to say it again, and she has to bite down on her tongue to not give in.

“That look that you have in your eyes, James… is the same Lex had. That thirst for feeling heroic, for being the center of the attention, for being praised as a saviour.”

He takes a step towards her, invading her personal space, trying to scare her with his stature. She must really have a thing for danger, because the urge to repeat that sentence he didn’t like grows stronger at his display of masculinity.

“So you’re insulting me because I’m good?”

“Oh no,” Lena smirks, bearing his eyes. “It’s just that you think of yourself that way.”

It hits exactly where she wanted: she can feel the anger bubble under his skin, he clenches his jaw and visibly tenses up. She shivers, pleased with herself.

“I won’t make this mistake again. You think you’re doing this to make them trust you, but actually you love their attention, the fact that you’re the chosen one, that you’re talking to them when even Supergirl can’t. I think you actually wanted the investigations against you to go on, to declare you guilty, even. You would be like a martyr, prosecuted for doing good, and people would have glorified you.”

She’s the one that takes a step forwards this time, and he retreats, with that look she always sees in the meeting room of her company, when she gets up to reply to white, old men, and they fall back in their seats before she even finishes her sentences.

“I think you wanted to be with me for the same reason. Not because you liked me, not particularly, but because I seem unreachable. Because I am a hard won prize. Because you can say to have had the care of Lena Luthor and it feels good, right? Not any man could have done it. I spoiled you with expensive gifts, took time off work to go look for them. They made you feel so special, you flatter me as long as I please you… but the moment I speak, and say something you don’t agree with, my gifts become trash to throw around and I a burden.”

She honestly didn’t pay it much attention when he had flung his jacket - a gift of hers - on the office chair, but now it stings, feels like a way to diminish her, but subtly, almost subconsciously.

“Then I’m incapable of love, I’m a nosy bitch that wants to tell you what you can and can’t do. I tried to protect you, but that makes _me_ the hero in your mind, that takes away the light from you. You’re tired of having Superman save you, of having Supergirl save you, you want to be the one getting thanked. You’re dangerous, James. Narcissistic. I can’t live with someone I can’t trust by my side, wondering when the change will happen, questioning everything you say. I payed of it one time, I experienced it already. You want to be as heroic as Supergirl and as kind as Kara, but really you are none of those things.”

Okay - she's done. She's fairly certain all the points she wanted to make are checked off her mental list, but, as she briefly goes over what she's said, she pauses at the last line. It wasn't something she had thought before. Or, more precisely, not something she had found the words to express in the right way.

Right in that last line, Lena realises, are both the reason why she got with him and the reason why they can't work out.

 

* * *

 

This relationship had never really been about the two of them. Another element was a constant presence in it. Not acknowledged, not until now, but there. It was in the far back of her mind, trying to evoke thoughts that she had promptly dismissed, guiding her hands when she pushed herself out of James’s reach.

Had she wanted this relationship? Honestly, no. Had she developed feelings, along the way at least? Not even familiarity. Was there anything, now, that made these past months worth of the time spent? Nothing came to mind.

What was left was this presence, becoming more and more free to come out and impose feelings, slowly developing eyes and lineaments. It looked very familiar.

“Lena!”

“Hey, Kara.”

She's showing up at her door unannounced, but Kara just smiles and moves to the side to let her in as she thought. She asks her if she wants something to drink while Lena shrugs off her coat and hangs it over Kara's.

“No, thank you,” she says, turning towards her. “I broke up with James.”

There, easy and direct.

“Oh.”

It makes sense that she feels the need to tell her straight away, right? Kara was the one to encourage her to give him a chance, she consented when Lena had told her about the kiss. So now she’s telling her it’s over. And while Kara processes the news - her face not hiding any of the emotions she goes through - Lena finds her heart is feeling more right in this moment than the long minutes she was standing in front of her (ex) boyfriend witnessing his reaction.

“We fought last night over his obsession for Agent of Liberty. I realized he reminded me too much of Lex, so I ended it.”

She’s not trying to justifying herself, Kara wouldn’t hold it against her whatever the reason, but this is the first thought of many that brought her to a conclusion and Kara need to know what that stream of consciousness made her realize. But she decides to leave out her role in James’ investigation, to ignore his words about her way of showing love and the fact that she agrees.

Kara lowers her gaze, finding the wooden table between them suddenly very interesting, her mind working as her brows furrow. Lena eyes her, absentmindedly half sitting on a stool just to be closer to her, her hand almost instantly reaching for hers. She stay put at the end.

“He really does,” is what Kara finally says.

She whispers it, raising her eyes to hers to find confirmation. Lena doesn’t know if she’s glad someone feels it, too, that she’s not crazy for seeing it, or if she’s mad at herself for making Kara share her doubts on her friend.

She made her sad, it’s so clear on her face.

“It’s just a thought,” Lena quickly adds. “It doesn’t mean it’s true, it’s just the way my mind works. You see the best in people, I see and expect the worse.”

“No, you’re right. I’m concerned with him as well.”

She sounds defeated, like Lena just yanked the last straws of hope out of her hands, like she’s accepting that she has been lying to herself all this time about him. So many times she’s tried to make him reason, over Agent of Liberty, over Guardian, but never has he even listened.

Not even about Lena herself. Lena, who she pushed towards him.

“I’m sorry,” Kara says, guilty, embarrassed, eyes gleaming. “I’m sorry I guilt-tripped you into this relationship, Lena, after all you’ve been through - god, I’m so sorry.”

 _No, no, no_ , she wants to say, _it’s not your fault, it’s mine, I just don’t work right, it was bound to happen_ , but Kara’s voice breaks and she hides behind her hands, tearing Lena’s heart in two. She never once blamed her, and she doesn’t now, so she takes her wrists in her hands and gently pries her away from her palms.

“Kara,” she calls, hoping that she’ll listen even though she’s still looking down. “I decided to be in this relationship on my own, it’s not your fault.”

Her words backfire, blame grows stronger in Kara’s eyes and she tears her hands away from her hold, getting up, almost knocking the stool over.

“But I’ve known him for years! And I’ve been with him before you, and I felt something was off,” she hits her own chest repeatedly with her right forefinger, her wide eyes unwavering in hers. “You know what? I broke up with him the day I met you. I never told you, but you literally… you came into my life, looked at me in the eyes, talked to me less than five minutes and you changed everything. With some sort of sixth sense you made me realize I wanted to be a reporter, you saw right through me.”

 _Oh_.

Something’s shifting between them. They’ve always been honest with one another, but this feels different. Kara’s pulling the words out of her chest, digging where she had buried them without even realizing she had.

“And then James is waiting for me, wanting to know what we are after that one kiss we had, the one I spent a year waiting. I look at him and don’t feel anything. After a year, Lena! I pined after him for months, got jealous of his ex girlfriend, and then you show up... something changes for me.”

Why are they talking about themselves? Lena’s speech would have brought them here in the end but Kara seems to have beaten her to it. She even got there walking down a different path, as if no matter how they analyze the situation, no matter the point of view, it would always come down to the two of them. So she wasn’t imagining it. Kara _was_ present in her relationship with James.

“From then on, I found myself at your office, you invited me to your gala, it was all so quick… there was a pull. Did I make it up, Lena? I wanted to be seen, I wanted _you_ to see me.”

 _I see you, I see you,_ she wants to scream; when she swallows back her words and stays silent, she finds her throat is hoarse. Kara’s break down is wrecking her, she's blunt, desperate in a way she has never seen before.

She doesn't cry about others. Ever. She cries about herself, she can't remember another time where she shed tears over somebody else's pain. Lena doesn’t even try to hide from herself that, if tears started to run down her cheeks now, she wouldn't  do anything to stop them.

She murmurs her name, slides her hand on the table toward her and asks her to sit. Kara watches the hand reaching for her and sighs, long and slow, taking off her glasses and letting them hit the surface of the table with a disturbing thud. She has never seen her without them. Lena watches them for a moment, but then Kara is sliding back on the stool in front of her and taking the hand she’s offering.

“He asked me if you were seeing anyone some time ago. Out of the blue, after months of fights with me because he didn’t trust you. I didn’t want him near you. Because you deserved better than someone who doubted you, but also…”

“But also...?”

“He already was your friend! Why did he want more? He would have become special to you, you would have turned to him for help, for sadness, for everything, instead of turning to me. I was afraid he would take you away from me, does it make sense? You wouldn't have needed me anymore.”

She wonders how on Earth Kara could even think that - if she only knew the level of importance she has in her life, if Lena could put it into words to make her understand...

“Kara, no one could take your place to me” is the only thing she can say for now, squeezing her hand tight, hoping Kara feels the honesty of the words in her hold if she doesn't trust her tone. But Kara is still trapped in her mind, and doesn't even hear.

“And then I feel so horrible for holding you back, for getting in the way of a relationship when it isn't my place, just because I'm insecure… to make up for it I punish myself, encouraging you to give him a chance.”

Tears are running down Kara’s cheeks, so clear even though she continues to look down, and Lena can’t bear the table standing in between them anymore. In a moment she’s right next to her and Kara is standing up, throwing herself in her arms full force, making her stumble backwards; but it’s good, it’s what they both need.

The chilly wetness of Kara’s tears on the side of her neck, where her face is pressed, where she can surely feel her pulse, and the hands clutching at her back, and the warmth of her whole body against hers - it all settles in her stomach, wiping away any bad feeling about James, about the months she spent not feeling a damn thing beside repulsion and thinking it was the confirmation she was built wrong.

“When I came here to tell you we kissed the first time,” she whispers, stroking Kara’s hair as she goes. “I wanted you to tell me not to go on. I wanted you to give me an excuse to break it off immediately. I wanted you to tell me you were wrong, that you couldn’t see me with him.”

If possible, Kara comes even closer, confirming in a way that she couldn’t, that she’s hugging her so tightly now because she still can't.

“But you didn't, so I went on. Maybe with time I'll feel something for him, I thought, but now that I'm out of it I realize the weight I was carrying. Having to pretend to like any of it. I only did it because he was the closest thing to you I could get.”

This is the point she wanted to make to begin with, but now that she’s here, that it’s her time to be open, the meaning of what she wants to say seems too big. Can they face it right now? Kara’s body is still shaking, Lena’s voice still raw, and they’re closer than they’ve been in months. Maybe it’s just the whirlwind of adrenaline and freedom, of sincerity and affection.

But then Kara is speaking against her, her breathing calms down, and Lena’s doubts fade.

“The closest thing to me?”

“He’s one of your best friends,” she answers. “I thought he would be similar to you, that he would share ethics, habits, I don’t know. It was bearable only because I was trying to find pieces of you in him. I didn’t find anything, of course. It only made the differences clearer, intolerable.”

Painful. Like she was squeezing herself small not to see how little it was worth. Like she was playing with a pocket mirror to see only the parts she wanted and blind herself when she didn't like what she saw, when it wouldn't match with Kara.

“Lena, what's wrong with us?”

If the question came from the inside, if it was her own mind asking it, she would give in and say _everything_. She didn't blame James when he wondered the same about her, she's told it to herself quietly, under her breath, multiple times, repeating a mantra that got stronger and stronger with time.

_Why can't you just be normal? Why do you have to ruin everything always? Why can't you find someone that stays, that loves you? Why to you repulse any good feeling?_

But the thought has Kara's voice this time, and it's clashing. _Not you, not you, you don't have to think this._ So she fights back her instinct, her negativity - is there really something wrong in being so special for each other that anyone else coming in between them feels like an inconvenience? Can't Kara just be the person that finally, finally, stays? And loves her? Can't she be the same for her?

“We're fine,” she says, resting her head on Kara's. “Nothing's wrong with us. We don't need James, we don't want him between us, so what? Am I not enough for you?”

She chuckles, kidding, trying to ease the mood, but Kara is sliding away from her embrace, planting her beautiful blue eyes on her. Lena's smile fades at the sudden change, at the raw intensity of her gaze.

“You're everything.”

 _Oh_.

Kara means it. She means it so deeply, the meaning it brings is so heavy, it should scare her. Even though Kara is affectionate, kind in the most wonderful way, Lena's learned she doesn't say things lightly. So when she tells her she's her best friend, that she's missed her, that's it's good to see her, Lena doesn't dismiss it. She doesn't try to ignore it in fear that she's going to give it much more importance than who said it.

So Lena believes her.

Even though it was hard to believe she was even enough - she's spent so much time telling it to herself, tutoring her mind to accept it, repeating it until the words didn't make any sense  anymore  (you're enough, you're enough, you're enough).

But now she's _everything_.

Lena nods, shy, as Kara’s eyes never leave hers and her usual conviction in everything she states and thinks comes back to life. If she asked her why, if she dared, Kara wouldn’t even spare a moment to think: she would start talking, sudden and honest, as if she was only waiting for her to ask, as if Lena had just broken the dam that kept her feelings for her at bay and she couldn’t control them any longer.

She doesn’t have the emotionally stability to face it, her chin is quivering and tears are forming in the corner of her eyes before she can open her mouth, but it’s all so clear she can hear the words even thought Kara is silent.

The intensity of the moment overtakes the control over her body, and she closes the space between them, tightens her arms around Kara and kisses her, squeezing her eyes shut hoping it will somehow stop her tears from falling. But the pressure of her eyelids is actually what causes them to run down her cheeks, and she accepts it while she presses her lips to hers.

It isn't sensual, and it isn't good, it's just a long press of her mouth, insistent, still and desperate. She doesn't have to strength to move her mouth, to open her lips for Kara, to try and make it a little bit gentler. Still, it's a whole different world from kissing James: her hands run over soft curves, the perfume surrounding them is just so not intoxicatingly masculine, and the fingers keeping her near are small, delicate.

“You're crying,” she hears Kara say when they part, reverent and quiet, and Lena keeps her eyes closed, only nods, knowing full well that she is. And when Kara cups her face with both hands and runs her thumbs over her cheeks to wipe the tears away, Lena almost tells her that that gesture is only going to make her cry harder.

The softness of the touch is both so Kara and so unfamiliar, she can't do anything but accept it. And when Kara is sure the traces are gone, she stops her hands on the sides of her neck, stills for a moment, and Lena finally opens her eyes in time to see her lean forward and kiss her on cheek.

Her lips have just been on her mouth, and yet this contact is so pure and caring it's affecting her even more: she can feel her breath, the sound her lips make when they leave her skin, Kara's slightly wet cheek against hers.

“You're everything to me, too,” Lena says, hands gripping Kara's shoulders, leaning back to search her eyes. They're reddish, gleaming, intense, she doesn't think she has seen anything as beautiful. “This is us. Nothing could be more right than this.”

**Author's Note:**

> Am I happy with this? I'm not sure honestly, but I desperately needed to write it.  
>   
> Come find me here! [ Tumblr ](http://thistableforone.tumblr.com/)


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